Production of high purity chondroitinase ABC

ABSTRACT

The present invention provides a method for purifying Chondroitinase ABC (ChABC). The present method includes using a heparin-immobilized affinity chromatography column, and through chromatography method obtaining a purified ChABC from a matrix containing the ChABC. The present method is capable of obtaining ChABC in high purity with the advantages of simplicity in preparation and high yield.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a process for the purification of chondroitinase ABC (ChABC), and more particularly to a method for purifying ChABC from a matrix containing ChABC by affinity chromatography.

BACKGROUND

Chondroitinase ABC (ChABC) is an enzyme that catalyzes chemical reactions involving the eliminative degradation of polysaccharides containing 1,4-beta-D-hexosaminyl and 1,3-beta-D-glucuronosyl or 1,3-alpha-L-iduronosyl linkages to disaccharides containing 4-deoxy-beta-D-gluc-4-enuronosyl groups. In animal tissues, ChABC acts on chondroitin 4-sulfate, chondroitin 6-sulfate and dermatan sulfate. Chondroitin sulfate is the most abundant of the glycosaminoglycans in biological systems and includes a variety of sulfated and non-sulfated carbohydrate derivatives including sulfated glucuronic acid, N-acetylgalactosamine, and iduronic acid. These materials are often linked to proteins to form chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (CSPG), which play a number of structural and functional roles in biological systems (e.g., cell-cell interactions with extracellular matrix, directing or inhibiting neurodevelopment, compositing cartilage to become a structural component). The biosynthesis of these CSPG molecules and the proper location are critical to the normal functioning of humans. In fact, many diseases associated with the lack of CSPG, accumulation, or dislocation, such as diffuse Lewy body disease, mucopolysaccharide disease IV-A type and mucopolysaccharide disease VIItype, disc herniation and so on.

Chondroitinase enzymes are a group of enzymes that can be divided into four types with different activity and substrate specificity (chondroitinase ABC, chondroitinase AC, chondroitinase B and chondroitinase C). These enzymes, particularly chondroitinase ABC, have recently been shown to be potential new biological agents for the treatment of many CSPG-related diseases. For example, researchers have found that ChABC can significantly promote functional recovery of a damaged spinal cord. Other researchers have shown that the injection of chondroitin sulfate into the affected parts of keloid and/or hypertrophic scars can greatly improve the symptoms. There has also been developed a successful model for the treatment of rabbit disc herniation with ChABC. Recent scientific studies have suggested that ChABC has more potential medical applications, including the treatment of amblyopia, nerve and spinal cord injuries, posterior vitreous detachment and inhibition of tumor metastasis.

Whether ChABC can be successfully used as a biotherapeutic agent is significantly dependent on the production and purification of ChABC. ChABC's existing upstream production techniques are based on the fermentation of unmodified proteus vulgaris or recombinant expression hosts (e.g., E. coli). By appropriate optimization, both of these production methods can yield a large number of non-purified matrices containing ChABC enzyme with a host organism. Because the matrices contain substantial quantities of protein, nucleic acid, endotoxin, and other impurities, the development of efficient downstream purification methods for obtaining high purity ChABC is critical. Further, the amount and nature of impurities from different expression hosts are very different, so in order to purify ChABC from a particular expression host, a specific downstream purification procedure will typically be developed separately, especially when using only non-specific interaction ion exchange (IEX) or hydrophobic interaction (HIC) chromatography. However, the development and optimization of IEX/HIC chromatography is time-consuming and requires considerable manpower and material resources. Consequently, the typical process requires multiple IEX/HIC chromatography steps to achieve high purity target proteins resulting in high overall cost.

In contrast to IEX/HIC chromatography, affinity chromatography presents several potential advantages. In affinity chromatography, molecules or molecules that interact specifically with the target protein are partially immobilized on the chromatography filler. This highly selective interaction can effectively extract the desired protein and remove impurities. However, affinity chromatography has not been used as a purification tool for ChABC without affinity tag. Because ChABC is an enzyme, it is not easy to design affinity chromatography for native ChABC. This is because most of the known molecules that can specifically bind to native ChABC are ChABC substrates that will be degraded when combined with the ChABC enzyme. In other words, if these substrate molecules are immobilized on the stationary phase, they will be decomposed by the enzyme during the purification process, so that ChABC cannot be captured from the solution.

Thus there is a need in the art for novel purification techniques for ChABC to enable cost-effective production of ChABC for use as a biotherapeutic drug.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In order to solve the problems in the prior art, the inventors have found that heparin not only specifically binds to ChABC, but is not degraded at the time of binding. Based on this finding, the present invention provides a method for purifying ChABC from a matrix containing ChABC by chromatography using an affinity column immobilized with heparin.

In one embodiment, the present invention provides a specific affinity chromatography process for preparing high purity chondroitinase ABC from a matrix including chondroitinase ABC and a microorganism to produce chondroitinase ABC. The process comprises providing a matrix of material comprising one or more microorganisms to produce chondroitinase ABC, the microorganism selected from genetically-modified Escherichia coli, genetically-modified Bacillus subtilis, Proteus vulgaris, Pichia pastoris, and/or Saccharomyces cerevisiae and chondroitinase ABC produced by the microorganism. Cell debris are removed by centrifugation and adjusting the pH and conductivity of the matrix material.

A specific affinity heparin-immobilized chromatography column is provided comprising heparin immobilized on a resin, wherein the heparin-immobilized chromatography column is pre-equilibrated to a pH of approximately pH 7.0-7.5. The heparin-immobilized chromatography column is loaded with the pH- and conductivity-adjusted matrix material. The heparin-immobilized chromatography column loaded with matrix material is washed with washing liquid in two or more washes at a first pH and a second pH wherein the first pH is higher than the second pH to wash unwanted protein, DNA, and endotoxin and wherein at least one of the first and second pH is higher than the isoelectric point of chondroitinase ABC.

Chondroitinase ABC is eluted in a linear gradient solution of pH 6-9 NaCl to yield chondroitinase ABC at a purity of at least 98% and a yield of at least 70% in a single pass of the heparin-immobilized chromatography column.

In a further aspect, the washing liquid may be a pH 8-10 buffer.

In a further embodiment, endotoxin in the eluate of chondroitinase ABC may be removed by filtration after elution, optionally to less than 0.0002 EU/U.

In one aspect, the washing liquid may be a carbonate buffer, a phosphate buffer, a borate buffer, a Tris-HCl buffer or a Tris acetate buffer.

In an embodiment, the pH of the matrix containing chondroitinase ABC ABC is adjusted to 7.0.

In one aspect, the conductivity of the matrix including chondroitinase ABC is adjusted to 1-5 mS/cm.

In a further aspect, the heparin is immobilized on a resin for protein purification having a hydroxyl group, an amino group and/or a carboxyl group.

The resin may comprise one or more of agarose, cellulose, dextran, silica polyacrylamide or acrylic acid polymer.

In one aspect, the heparin is covalently bonded to the resin.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a chromatogram of Example 2 of the present invention.

FIG. 2 shows a chromatogram of Example 3 of the present invention.

FIG. 3 shows an SDS-PAGE diagram of Example 3 of the present invention.

FIG. 4 shows a chromatogram of Example 4 of the present invention.

FIG. 5 shows an SDS-PAGE diagram of Example 4 of the present invention.

FIG. 6 shows a chromatogram of Example 5 of the present invention.

FIG. 7 shows an SDS-PAGE diagram of Example 5 of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention provides a novel and simple method for the purification of ChABC which can be applied to various ChABC-containing matrices. As used herein, the term “matrix” refers to a mixture of extracellular material or intracellular material (protein, DNA, lipid, etc.) from a host cell as a result of the host cell producing ChABC, along with the ChABC itself. The matrix may include bacteria, fungi, extracts containing surfactants, supernatants collected during fermentation, and other materials from the production of ChABC from a host material. The purification method is a chromatography method using an affinity column capable of selectively capturing ChABC. The affinity column is a column that binds to a specific ligand that specifically interacts with ChABC under chromatography conditions.

In an embodiment of the present invention, the ChABC, which is represented by the primary amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1, is either obtained from Proteus vulgaris or from the cell of the host material including but not limited to Escherichia. coli, Bacillus subtillis, Proteus vulgaris, Pichia postoris, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, etc. which recombinantly expresses the protein. The ChABC expressed from the recombinant host cell without additional processing contains an additional methionine (the amino acid sequence thereof is represented by SEQ ID NO: 2) at the N-terminal which is originated from the start codon “ATG”. The N-terminal methionine can be removed to generate the mature ChABC with the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO: 1.

In the preparation of prokaryotic recombinant expression systems, the target gene for the expressed protein shall be cloned into an expression vector or integrated into the host's chromosomal DNA. In order to express the gene, start codon shall be present in the 5′ end of the gene, which is translated into methionine at the N-terminal of the expressed protein. In many cases, the mature protein expressed in their natural host are naturally processed by other enzymes, for example, signal peptidase, during the extracellular exportation. In other words, the N-terminal of many naturally processed proteins contain no N-terminal methionine. Without introducing proper processing machinery, the recombinant protein will contain an additional and unnatural methionine at the N-terminal.

In order to produce a native protein without an additional N-terminal methionine, methionine aminopeptidase is usually cloned into the expression host and co-expressed with the recombinant target protein. Methionine aminopeptidase can remove the N-terminal methionine, but this enzyme has limited activity against the protein with charged or bulky amino acid residue at the P1′ position. In addition, the activity of methionine aminopeptidase is dependent on the P2′ position of the recombinant protein. Another strategy of generating recombinant protein with native sequence without additional N-terminal methionine is by utilizing protease that can digest the protein specifically and have no or low selectivity on the P1′ position, i.e., without leaving a residue at the C-terminal side after the enzymatic digestion, after being purified from the host matrix. In this method, a DNA sequence encoding an affinity tag, e.g., maltose binding protein, His-tag, etc., are fused to the 5′ end of the target gene. The protein expressed is therefore unnaturally tag-fused. However, the tag can be specifically removed by certain proteases, e.g., TEV protease, factor Xa, etc. Although this can effectively generate recombinant protein without additional methionine, the enzymatic digestion is conducted in vitro after the protein purification, and an additional chromatographic step is required to remove the protease.

To solve this problem, in the present invention, an engineered TEV protease that have a broad P1′ selectivity is cloned into the expression host and co-expressed with ChABC gene of which a TEV protease recognition site (amino acid sequence ENLYFQ) has been added between the initial methionine and the native ChABC sequence.

For the recombinant bacterial expression system, the gene encoding the ChABC protein (SEQ ID NO: 3) is ligated into an expression vector containing promoter and Shine-Dalgarno (SD) sequence that can enable high transcription level in the host cell. Promoter of the vector used in E. coli expression system can be T7, T5, Lac, Trp, araC or any hybrid promoter of them. Promoter of the vector used in B. subtilis can be Spac, SacB, Xyl, PBAD, Pgrac or any hybrid promoter of them. Apart from transforming the host bacteria with recombinant replicable expression vector, chromosomal integration of ChABC gene into the host bacteria can be another strategy for overexpression of ChABC. Some examples of chromosomal integration vector include pSG1112 (Liu et al., 2004) for the B. subtilis 1A304(Φ105MU331) and pMG1 (Gimpel et al., 2012) for B. subtilis MG1P.

The expression of ChABC from Proteus vulgaris can be induced by introducing chondroitin sulfate, which is a known inducer for the production of the protein, into the culture medium through fed batch fermentation. In the recombinant expression system, the inducer is vector- and promoter-dependent, for example, IPTG for the lac promoter, arabinose for pBAD promoter. In the case of intracellularly expressed ChABC, the bacteria can be harvested by centrifugation or cross-flow microfiltration, depending on the scale of the fermentation. The extraction of ChABC from harvested bacteria can be either by mechanical disruption, for example, sonication, liquid homogenization, freeze-thaw, etc., or by chemical disruption, for example, introducing surfactant, lysozyme or any other lytic enzyme. ChABC in the extract or lysate is purified by the affinity chromatography method of the present invention.

To determine a suitable affinity material the inventors selected a large number of different types of polysaccharide derivatives such as glycosaminoglycans or other polysaccharides such as alginates, fucoidan, polygalacturonic acid, pentosan polysulfates, cellulose phosphates, etc. for determination of suitability for use in affinity chromatography. Although immobilization of the selected polysaccharide on the resin is the most direct way of testing the suitability of these ligands for ChABC affinity chromatography, the immobilization, ligand density, spacer groups, etc. between the ligand and the resin surface can significantly affect the interaction between ChABC and the immobilized polysaccharides. In other words, the determination of the binding between ChABC and polysaccharide in the solution phase is more appropriate and accurate for revealing the intensity of the interaction.

There are several existing methods for quantitative study of protein-small molecule interactions such as differential scanning calorimetry, quartz crystal microbalance, fluorescence anisotropy, and the like. However, these methods require complex equipment, are expensive and time consuming, requiring protein immobilization or protein labeling. In order to save time and reduce costs, semi-quantitative assessment methods can be applied, such as enzyme inhibition assays. In the present invention, the relative binding affinity is evaluated by monitoring the inhibition of ChABC by the selected polysaccharide. The stronger the observed inhibitory effect, the higher the affinity between the ChABC and the polysaccharide. A more detailed experimental setup is shown in Example 1. It was found that heparin almost completely inhibited ChABC activity when an equal amount of substrate (chondroitin sulfate C) was administered by enzyme inhibition assay. Thus, heparin was identified as the most suitable ligand among the selected screened polysaccharides for constructing the affinity column.

In the present invention, heparin may be immobilized on different resins having a hydroxyl, amino, and carboxyl group for ligand immobilization. Heparin may be covalently bonded to the resin. For the resin, the present invention is not particularly limited as long as heparin can be covalently bonded to the resin. Selected resins include, but are not limited to agarose, cellulose, dextran, silica polyacrylamide, or acrylic polymers. The heparin or resin may be activated by various activators including, but not limited to, cyanogen bromide, EDC/NHS (1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide/succinimide), sodium periodate, epichlorohydrin, and the like.

In the present invention, the affinity column to which heparin is immobilized, particularly covalently bound to heparin, does not require further coating. In particular, the column is not further coated with glycosaminoglycans which are degraded by ChABC. Optionally, further coating is feasible without the use of glycosaminoglycans.

Although heparin can bind and can significantly inhibit ChABC, the affinity between immobilized heparin and ChABC in chromatography is unknown. To demonstrate that ChABC still has affinity for immobilized heparin, the purified ChABC was loaded into a chromatography column of heparin coupled via amide bonds to crosslinked agarose beads and washed with the various buffers described in Example 2. In fact, Tris acetate buffer (pH 9.2) that has a pH above the isoelectric point (pI=8.5) of ChABC was applied to the column. At the pI, ChABC becomes negative, and negatively-charged ChABC and the negatively-charged heparin on the resin should repel each other. If ChABC has only a non-specific charge interaction with heparin, it will elute from the column. However, from the experimental results, ChABC was not only successfully captured by the resin, but was not eluted by a buffer having a pH above the pI. In other words, ChABC has a specific interaction with heparin, rather than pure nonspecific charge interactions.

In the present invention, the ChABC affinity chromatography column using heparin has a significant advantage over the most commonly used cation exchange column for ChABC purification because of the significantly lower amount of impurities that are non-specifically bound to the resin. Thus, the affinity chromatography of the present invention can be applied to various matrices with different impurity spectra including, but not limited to, Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Proteus vulgaris, Yeast (Pichia pastoris and/or Saccharomyces cerevisiae), to obtain highly purified ChABC. However, since heparin is a negatively charged polysaccharide, a small amount of positively charged protein may still be non-specifically captured by heparin immobilized resin. However, it was determined that these nonspecific binding proteins can be removed by application of high pH buffers (pH 8-10). Selected pH 8-10 buffers include carbonate buffer, phosphate buffer, borate buffer, Tris-HCl buffer or Tris acetate buffer, such as sodium carbonate buffer, sodium phosphate buffer, potassium carbonate buffer, potassium phosphate buffer, sodium borate buffer, potassium borate buffer. Buffers in this pH range can significantly reduce nonspecific protein interactions because most of the protein impurities will become negatively charged and therefore do not interact with the heparin immobilized resin with charge. The effect of ChABC is not affected by the high pH buffers. After removal of protein impurities, ChABC was eluted with a linear gradient of NaCl at pH 6-9. The eluate may contain ChABC (Examples 3-5) having a purity of up to 98-99% or more and having a low endotoxin level. The endotoxin can be further removed by passing the eluate through an endotoxin capture filter. In addition to low endotoxin and protein impurities, another advantage of this process is simplicity and high recovery. Single-step chromatography significantly reduces the processing time, thus avoiding the loss of activity during processing. In fact, the final yield is in the range of 70-80% (Examples 3-5), which is significantly higher than all existing methods. More importantly, affinity chromatography can be applied to different types of substrates produced by different host cells.

Example 1

In the present invention, it is necessary to identify molecules that have a similar structure to the substrate of ChABC but are inert to enzymatic degradation. In order to test polysaccharides that could actually bind to the active site of ChABC, a relative enzyme inhibition assay was conducted on the selected polysaccharide:

490 μL of the substrate solution was incubated at 37° C. for at least 15 minutes containing 0.2% chondroitin sulfate C, 0.2% selected polysaccharide and 50 mM pH8 Tris HCl buffer. 10 μL of ChABC with activity of about 100 U/L was incubated at 37° C. for at least 3 minutes. After incubation, the two solutions were gently mixed. The mixture was then incubated at 37° C. for 20 minutes to perform enzymatic degradation of chondroitin sulfate. After 20 minutes, the reaction was terminated by inactivating ChABC by heating at 100° C. for 2 minutes. In addition to inactivating the mixture immediately without incubation for 20 minutes, a blank control was performed in the same manner. The absorbance of the heat inactivated solution at 232 nm was then measured and the apparent activity was calculated as shown in Equation 1. The assay in the absence of selected polysaccharide was also conducted in the same manner as a reference. The calculation of the percentage of inhibition was showed in Equation 2:

$\begin{matrix} {{U/L}\frac{Abs}{E \times t} \times \frac{Vt}{Vs} \times 1000 \times D\; F} & \left( {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 1} \right) \end{matrix}$

where

-   -   Abs=Difference in absorbance         -   =OD_(232 nm) in sample tubes−OD_(232 nm) in blank tubes     -   E=Millimolar extinction coefficient of unsaturated disaccharides         from         -   Chondroitin Sulfate C=5.5     -   t=Reaction time=20 min     -   Vt=Total volume of the assay=0.5 mL     -   Vs=Volume of enzyme used=0.01 mL     -   DF=Dilution factor     -   1000=Convert U/mL to U/L

$\begin{matrix} {{\%\mspace{14mu}{in}} = {\frac{A({poly})}{A({ref})} \times 100\%}} & \left( {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 2} \right) \end{matrix}$

where

-   -   % rA=percentage of residual activity     -   A(poly)=the activity presence of selected polysaccharide     -   A(ref)=the absorbance of the assay without the presence of         selected polysaccharide

Among all polysaccharides, alginate and polygalacturonic acid had no significant effect on enzyme activity, whereas heparin had the strongest inhibitory effect on ChABC. The results of the relative enzyme inhibition assays are shown in Table 1:

TABLE 1 Polygalacturonic Sample Reference Heparin acid Alginic acid Activity 121 5.1 117 119 (U/L) % rA NA 4.2  97  98

Furthermore, as incubation of ChABC alone with the heparin does not give any change in absorbance, heparin is not subject to the enzymatic degradation activity of ChABC. Therefore, immobilization of heparin as a ligand for affinity purification of ChABC is the most suitable choice among the selected polysaccharide derivatives.

Example 2

To test whether ChABC has a specific interaction with immobilized heparin, a column filled with heparin coupled via amide bonds to crosslinked agarose beads was used. The column was pre-equilibrated with 25 mM Tris-acetate (pH 7.3) before loading the sample onto the column. ChABC was dissolved in 25 mM Tris-acetate (pH 7.5) and loaded onto a column. (1) 25 mM Tris-acetate (pH 9.2), (2) 100 mM Tris-acetate (pH 9.2), (3) 60 mM Tris-acetate (pH 8) and (4) 100 mM Tris-Acetate (pH 7.5). None of these buffers elute ChABC from the column. And when the 0-0.3M NaCl linear gradient is applied, ChABC can be eluted from the column. The chromatogram is shown in FIG. 1.

Example 3

Gene encoding ChABC (SEQ ID NO: 1) from P. vulgaris was cloned by conventional PCR from the genomic DNA of P. vulgaris. This PCR product contain the DNA sequence encoding ChABC (SEQ ID NO:1) was used as a template for the second round PCR during which it was decided to add the DNA sequence encoding MGSENLYFQ to the N-terminal of the ChABC, so that the DNA sequence encoding TEV protease-recognition-site contained ChABC (SEQ ID NO: 3) was generated. The PCR product was ligated via T4 DNA ligase to linearized pET3a to form a recombinant plasmid with the encoding sequence of native ChABC. The recombinant plasmid was then introduced into E. coli strain BLR (DE3) by electroporation. The transformed E. coli was plated on LB agar plate containing 50 μg/ml ampicillin to allow selection of colonies transformed with the plasmid. The selected single colony was inoculated into LB medium at 37° C. with 50 μg/ml ampicillin for 18 hours as a pre-culture and this pre-culture was transferred into another LB culture medium at 37° C. containing 50 μg/ml ampicillin in the ratio 1:100. This other culture medium was further incubated at 37° C. until the OD600 reached 0.8. IPTG at 1 mM was added to the culture medium for inducing the production of ChABC to progress further 4 hours. The cell mass was harvested by centrifugation and stored at −80° C.

10 g of recombinant E. coli cells were resuspended in 25 mM Tris HCl (pH 7.0) and subjected to sonication for 5 minutes. Cell debris were removed from the suspension by centrifugation at 17000 g for 1 hour. The supernatant was collected and the pH was adjusted to pH 7.0 by the addition of NaOH. The conductivity of the supernatant was adjusted to 1.2 mS/cm by the addition of double deionized water.

The supernatant containing ChABC was subjected to 0.22 μm filtration prior to loading onto a heparin immobilized column with pH 7.5 25 mM Tris-acetate pre-equilibrated. The column was then washed with (1) 100 mM Tris-acetate (pH 7.5), (2) 60 mM Tris-acetate (pH 8), (3) 100 mM Tris-acetate (pH 9.2) Of ChABC was linearly eluted by 0-0.5 M NaCl. The chromatogram and SDS-PAGE are shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. 3.

The degree of purification in the above method is shown in Table 2.

TABLE 2 Total activity (U) Recovery yield (%) Supernatant before 3034 — chromatography Flow through   5 — Wash 1 <1 — Wash 2 <1 — Wash 3 <1 — Eluate 2998 76

It can be seen that the method of this example is capable of obtaining ChABC with a purity of >99%, a recovery rate of 76% and an endotoxin level below 0.0002 EU/U.

Example 4

Gene encoding ChABC (SEQ ID NO: 1) from P. vulgaris was cloned by conventional PCR from the genomic DNA of P. vulgaris. This PCR product contain the DNA sequence encoding ChABC (SEQ ID NO:1) was used as a template for the second round PCR which was decided to add the DNA sequence encoding MGSENLYFQ to the N-terminal of the ChABC, so that the DNA sequence encoding TEV protease-recognition-site contained ChABC (SEQ ID NO: 3) was generated. The PCR product was ligated via T4 DNA ligase to linearized pHT43 to form a recombinant plasmid with the encoding sequence of native ChABC. The recombinant plasmid was then introduced into B. subtilis 168 by electroporation. The transformed B. subtilis was plated on a 2×TY agar plate containing 5 μg/ml chloramphenicol to allow selection of colonies transformed with the plasmid. The selected single colony was inoculated into a sterile 2×TY medium at 37° C. with 5 μg/ml chloramphenicol for 18 hours as a pre-culture and this pre-culture was transferred into another sterile 2×TY culture medium at 37° C. containing 5 μg/ml chloramphenicol in the ratio 1:100. This another culture medium was further incubated at 37° C. until the OD600 reached 0.8. IPTG at 1 mM was added to the culture medium for inducing the production of ChABC to progress further 4 hours. The cell mass was harvested by centrifugation and stored at −80° C.

5 g of recombinant B. subtilis cells were resuspended in 25 mM Tris-acetate (pH 7.0) incubated with 1 μg/ml lysozyme for 20 min at 30° C. The bacterial cells were further lysed by sonication for 5 minutes. Cell debris was removed from the suspension by centrifugation at 17000 g for 1 hour. The supernatant was collected and the pH was adjusted to pH 7.0 by introduction of NaOH. The conductivity of the supernatant was adjusted to 1.6 mS/cm by the introduction of double deionized water.

The supernatant containing ChABC was subjected to 0.22 μm filtration prior to loading onto a heparin immobilized column with pH 7.5 25 mM Tris-acetate pre-equilibrated. The column was then washed with (1) pH 7.5 25 mM Tris-acetate, (2) pH 8 60 mM Tris acetate, (3) pH 9 100 mM Tris acetate. The ChABC on the column was eluted with a linear gradient of 0-0.5 M NaCl. The chromatogram is shown in FIG. 4 and FIG. 5. The degree of purification is shown in Table 3.

TABLE 3 Total activity (U) Recovery yield (%) Supernatant before 2610 — chromatography Flow through <1 — Wash 1 <1 — Wash 2 <1 — Wash 3 <1 — Eluate 1931 74

It can be seen that the method of this example is capable of obtaining ChABC with a purity of >99%, a recovery rate of 74% and an endotoxin level below 0.0002 EU/U.

Example 5

The cell paste of 25 g of Proteus vulgaris was resuspended in 25 mM Tris-acetate (pH 7.0) containing 2% Triton X-100 preheated at 37° C. for 30 minutes. The suspension was stirred continuously at 750 rpm and incubated at 37° C. for 2 hours. After extraction, the suspension was diluted 2-fold with 4-6° C. high-purity water. The diluted suspension was then immediately clarified by high-speed centrifugation at 17700 g centrifugation. The supernatant was further clarified by filtration through a micropore with a pore size of 0.2 μm. The pH of the clarified supernatant was adjusted to pH 7.0, the conductivity was adjusted to 4.8 mS/cm, and then loaded onto the heparin immobilized column. The heparin immobilized column was pre-equilibrated with pH 7.0 25 mM Tris-acetate. After the supernatant was completely loaded onto the column, the column was washed with (1) pH 7.0 25 mM Tris-acetate, (2) pH 8.0 60 mM Tris-acetate and (3) pH 10 100 mM Tris-Acetate 9.2 to remove impurities that include unwanted proteins, DNA, endotoxin. ChABC was eluted with a linear gradient of 0-0.5 M NaCl and tested for endotoxin levels below 0.0002 EU/U. Purified chromatograms are shown in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7. The degree of purification is shown in Table 4.

TABLE 4 Total activity (U) Recovery yield (%) Supernatant before 2810 — chromatography Flow through <1 — Wash 1 <1 — Wash 2 <1 — Wash 3 <1 — Eluate 2248 81

It can be seen that the method of this example is capable of obtaining ChABC with a purity of >99%, a recovery rate of 81% and endotoxin levels below 0.0002 EU/U.

Those skilled in the art, with the guidance of the above teachings, may make various modifications and variations with respect to the invention. It is therefore to be understood that the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described herein without departing from the spirit of the invention as set forth in the claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A specific affinity chromatography process for preparing high purity chondroitinase ABC from a matrix including chondroitinase ABC and a microorganism to produce chondroitinase ABC, the process comprising: providing a matrix of material comprising one or more microorganisms to produce chondroitinase ABC, the microorganism including DNA encoding the amino acid sequence set forth in SEQ ID NO: 3 and chondroitinase ABC produced by the microorganism; removing cell debris by centrifugation and adjusting the pH and conductivity of the matrix material; providing a specific affinity heparin-immobilized chromatography column comprising heparin immobilized on a resin, wherein the heparin-immobilized chromatography column is pre-equilibrated to a pH of approximately pH 7.0-7.5; loading the heparin-immobilized chromatography column with the pH- and conductivity-adjusted matrix material; washing the heparin-immobilized chromatography column loaded with matrix material with washing liquid in two or more washes at a first pH and a second pH wherein the first pH is higher than the second pH and wherein at least one of the first and second pH is higher than the isoelectric point of chondroitinase ABC to wash unwanted protein, DNA, and endotoxin; eluting chondroitinase ABC in a linear gradient solution of pH 6-9 NaCl to yield chondroitinase ABC at a purity of at least 98% and a yield of at least 70% in a single pass of the heparin-immobilized chromatography column.
 2. The process of claim 1, wherein the washing liquid is a pH 8-10 buffer.
 3. The process of claim 1, further comprising removing endotoxin in the eluate of chondroitinase ABC by filtration after elution.
 4. The process of claim 3, wherein the endotoxin level of the purified chondroitinase ABC is less than 0.0002 EU/U.
 5. The process of claim 2, wherein the washing liquid is a carbonate buffer, a phosphate buffer, a borate buffer, a Tris-HCl buffer or a Tris acetate buffer.
 6. The process of claim 1, wherein the pH of the matrix containing chondroitinase ABC is adjusted to 7.0.
 7. The process of claim 1, wherein the conductivity of the matrix including chondroitinase ABC is adjusted to 1-5 mS/cm.
 8. The process of claim 1, wherein the heparin is immobilized on a resin for protein purification having a hydroxyl group, an amino group and/or a carboxyl group.
 9. The process of claim 1, wherein the resin comprises one or more of agarose, cellulose, dextran, silica polyacrylamide or acrylic acid polymer.
 10. The process of claim 1, wherein the heparin is covalently bonded to the resin.
 11. A specific affinity chromatography process for preparing high purity chondroitinase ABC from a matrix including chondroitinase ABC and a microorganism to produce chondroitinase ABC, the process comprising: providing a matrix of material comprising one or more microorganisms to produce chondroitinase ABC, the microorganism selected from genetically-modified Escherichia coli, genetically-modified Bacillus subtilis, Proteus vulgaris, Pichia pastoris, and/or Saccharomyces cerevisiae and chondroitinase ABC produced by the microorganism; removing cell debris by centrifugation and adjusting the pH and conductivity of the matrix material; providing a specific affinity heparin-immobilized chromatography column comprising heparin immobilized on a resin, wherein the heparin-immobilized chromatography column is pre-equilibrated to a pH of approximately pH 7.0-7.5; loading the heparin-immobilized chromatography column with the pH- and conductivity-adjusted matrix material; washing the heparin-immobilized chromatography column loaded with matrix material with washing liquid in two or more washes at a first pH and a second pH wherein the first pH is higher than the second pH and wherein at least one of the first and second pH is higher than the isoelectric point of chondroitinase ABC to wash unwanted protein, DNA, and endotoxin; eluting chondroitinase ABC in a linear gradient solution of pH 6-9 NaCl to yield chondroitinase ABC at a purity of at least 98% and a yield of at least 70% in a single pass of the heparin-immobilized chromatography column.
 12. The process of claim 11, wherein the washing liquid is a pH 8-10 buffer.
 13. The process of claim 11, further comprising removing endotoxin in the eluate of chondroitinase ABC by filtration after elution.
 14. The process of claim 13, wherein the endotoxin level of the purified chondroitinase ABC is less than 0.0002 EU/U.
 15. The process of claim 12, wherein the washing liquid is a carbonate buffer, a phosphate buffer, a borate buffer, a Tris-HCl buffer or a Tris acetate buffer.
 16. The process of claim 11, the pH of the matrix containing chondroitinase ABC ABC is adjusted to 7.0.
 17. The process of claim 11, wherein the conductivity of the matrix including chondroitinase ABC is adjusted to 1-5 mS/cm.
 18. The process of claim 11, wherein the heparin is immobilized on a resin for protein purification having a hydroxyl group, an amino group and/or a carboxyl group.
 19. The process of claim 11, wherein the resin comprises one or more of agarose, cellulose, dextran, silica polyacrylamide or acrylic acid polymer.
 20. The process of claim 11, wherein the heparin is covalently bonded to the resin. 